


Synchronisation, syncope, syncopation

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only River and the Doctor would manage to dance without bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synchronisation, syncope, syncopation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inkfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkfire/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Azzie! This is very fluffy and strange, but you know perfectly why I had to.

“Course, you had no idea that would happen.” His tongue dawdled through the admonishment before lazily sticking out. It flopped onto the musky floor and the Doctor contorted his face in a grimace.

Cave underneath orchard, they had to. Apple-scented, worm-damp, pitch-black.

River grunted against his back and the vibrations echoed in his ribcage, tickling, and sprinkling.

Glued to his palate, laughter failed him and instead he lifted his arms behind to feel around her position in relation to him. She seemed to be somehow flung across his back, head on his jacket, torso apparently out of touch. Not that he was in need of her torso at the moment, but it would have helped with the mapping of their situation. He did not want to blast her foot, after all. This tends to happen when he has free access to her weapon. He likes her feet. Maybe more than her chest.

_Focus, Doctor._

From the corner of his eyes he could see a hand lying motionless near his shoulder. Unfortunately, it was of no help in his apprehension of her posture. Left or right hand, it was an obviously uncomfortable position.

“River, I have two questions and I am perfectly aware of how useless the first will sound. First, did the powder come in contact with your tongue and now you are completely unable to speak as well as to move? Second, are you hurt?”

She grunted some more, annoyed, which would definitely indicate an absence of injuries.  

“Good.”

A gnarl rattled his ribcage, ominous.

“Sorry”, he muttered, trying not to let her slide off his back while talking. “I didn’t mean good as in I-did-a-thing-good, I meant good as in we-are-alive-and-no-one-is-presently-trying-to-terminate-our-life-good.”

Her body was remarkably still and heavy, muscles relaxed and useless. As he attempted to motion his head to have a closer look at their surroundings, he felt a familiar mount on the side of his face and stilled.

“Is it your hip on my ear? Are you upside down?”

 She sighed and he rolled his eyes. She would be upside down, probably after an acrobatic and very vain attempt at avoiding sliding in the under-tree with him. Which would have been very nearly of use, since he would have ended up alone and paralysed underground, while she would have been alone and paralysed above ground. Except maybe not alone because the Mezwees are very cuddly creatures who would have very much enjoyed the cuddly appearance of River –that hair. The rescue mission would have been compromised.

 _Fine._ More compromised than it was already.

“I can’t even begin to understand how you did that.” He resumed his scolding, trying to chase the gruesome image of River drowning under the cuddles of the furry creatures. “Mezwees are practically blind. Who were you trying to impress anyway?”

He could tell by the sudden tension in the atmosphere she was vainly focusing on restarting her body. He felt waves of energy graze his body, emanating from her, impulses sent that contracted his back muscles. His right arm, closer to her trunk, began jerking and he screeched.

“River, that’s my arm! You can’t move. No need to try telepathy. You probably took the most of the powder.  You’re going to have to trust me on this. “

River wheezed back at him and he proceeded to follow through with his non-plan.

After a good thirty seconds of groping blindsided his way to one of her arms, he gathered his strength and tugged at her. A muffled scream and a dull thump answered. She had landed on her nose on the other side of his body. He recoiled.

Little incidents like these were a reminder of her vulnerability near him. River gets hurt because of him. He knows he also saves her often. But River always manages to stay unharmed when she is alone.  

He is a variable she cannot control.

A gentle hum rose from his side. It was her way of telling him she was fine, of reminding him she was not made of glass.  

He pulled more gently, lifting his arm as high as he could to prevent her face from rubbing the ground as he manoeuvred to lay her besides him. The limpness in her body, the sudden weight upset him. River is strung and taut, never resting. Contrary to what he had said many years ago, she propels, never drags him. Here, he was in complete attendance to her body, yet could not tune in and adjust to her pace. He was before her as a non-taught Doctor, as in Asgard, as in the Library.

River motionless. Doctor afraid. A little. She was with him.

The trees above had shifted their roots, and a ray of light hit the bottom of the cave.

 “I hate to say it but we’ll have to wait until the effects wear off.”

River grunted in annoyance. He could pride himself in reading so well his wife’s bouts of moodiness. Even if the moodiness was entirely justified by the state they were in. Body unresponsive and brain muddled.

His eyes could not make out her face in the dark, though he knew her to be in front of him. His hand was senseless; he could not feel the patterns on her skin. Locked in himself. Isolated.

For a moment he feared to call her name. She would not answer. He could be alone and not know it. She could be a phantom.

That was when he starkly shivered and she surreptitiously slipped into his skin. Or he slipped into hers. He could sense someone having goose bumps, he could sense tangy ground dampening clothes. But whose hair and whose clothes he could not tell. The paralysis did not help.

He could see himself and read her thoughts.

Her pointy thinking. Shards, cold and frosted, to climb and to get lost onto.

She understood life as a sum of moments removed and launched and her love as an instrument to measure its celerity. Not like him.

He is… Not River, that’s the best way to put it. Not impossible and woman and child of Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Not River.

But like him, she sees time.

Time blossoms around them. From the centre of a finger lifted, they can see paths unchosen opening and spreading.

And there they were, motionless. He could guess the possibilities curbing around them, gathering from their vast and boundless paths of poured waits and skipped beats precisely in the crease of her (his?) elbow. Between them, like a faucet. But running still, searching for an entrance, a weaker point to seep into the bodies made of time. Curiosities. And eager to soaked such bodies.

He let them in.

A weight immense adhered to his body and gripped his being. It dabbed for a while, as if trying to get a better hold onto him. Stuttering touches of light on the surface of River’s widened eyes recorded her uneasiness. He squeezed her hand.

The force plucked them out of their bodies, leaving them stranded on the floor, anchored to each other more than to the dust and the dampness below.

Strings of light as easel, they followed the merry dance of the time lines meddling with them.

Unburdened by their carnal relays, they zinged, leaving punctures in the fabric of time. Or rather, he would, beastly swinger, snooping on time, wanting to experience more and more of the time lines and rhythms.

 _Oh_ , such sweet tempo in this direction, such flagrant lack of gravity in this one. And pain sometimes, because he would not take off fast enough. All the people who had been here, all the dusts and atoms, and thoughts even that had travelled and met at this point. All spread and opened to them, defined like railways.

With a tug of the hand (hand, how? They have none left), River would scooped him up to her, back to possibilities on firmer ground and closer range; their life, two-hands-two-feet-one-mind-one-head-two-hearts lives.

The Doctor had not realised he had ventured into the lives of a couple of lizards. The walls had been very tempting.

And River even more so.

Another encounter with Mezwees’ ancestors would rock them as some mellow Jazz music. His hips would found hers; somehow his heat would not devour hers. Sweet laugh playing xylophone on his spine. Curls drumming on his cheek. Her calf had a way of stringing his calf and leading them into a tango between periods. Every word, every phrases never-yet pronounced suddenly a rush of notes to their feet. Feet unliving and undancing in a Neverland so similar to the one in which they are stuck on the ground.

Hooting with time, River treaded, River skeeted.

He can barely waltz, barely tap. It doesn’t matter; time doesn’t settle for three-beat rhythms and weight transfer. The players at play are of a texture essential for skipping time, stopping, rewinding.

A time line tripped on his gangly shuffling leg and River caught it in a reverence. He surged, eliciting an ‘Oh’ and an ‘Ah’ from her soundless lips, hoisting her up to times woven in History.

She chided him, hiding her face and singing, pink:

“Bull in a china shop, bull in a china shop.”

Time launched a pop like a bottle of champagne opening and on them rained down the entire army of Napoleon during the Russian campaign.

River laughed, he caught it. A rhythm you pick, except he was following her rather than the soft muttering mess of tiny soldiers pouring from the time wound. She let him lead, hearts unbidden.

They seem to be performing steps in syncopation, together, without ever rehearsing. Their life, that single thread followed amidst all the other threads. A twirl on the side-step, side-time, time-cha-cha and they would tread with light cautiousness for the ground was teeming with diminutive _Grognards_.

It felt like absolute liberty and control at once, this vivid control over his not-so-vivid body (he hopped over their lying form with a pirouette). His River-Ginger, Rivinger, Gingiver was deliciously responsive to every deliberate misstep and makeshift solo.

She knocked the back of his head for such a christening.

They soon discovered they could gather momentum by going straight for big events. Bang! They had collided with the birth of a star, and were shooting straight on till Daar Mor first meeting with Casso. Rawr! They had just bounced off the Vespus landing to rim the signing of the Vulcan/Mezwees peace treaty. And zap, and whiz, and smooch even, they were laid breathless on the ceiling of time, up-downside and studded across possibles.

From caroms to stand-still, they had run the gamut of ifs coursing through this particular spot in space and time, where River and the Doctor were stunned and muddy languid under a tree.

For the moment, stuck to the ceiling of time.

“Okay. Groovy.”

“Are we stuck to the ceiling?”

“No. Sort of. Yes.”

“Let me rephrase that. Are our temporal energies stuck to the ceiling while our physical selves are enjoying a shared petrified snore?”

“Er. For the moment. But we are not talking, really. So you can’t rephrase.”

“Good. Then I won’t be sulking in my part of Mezwees Ancient History while you find a way to get us down."

Had he still a head and mop, he would have scratched them. He was pretty sure River could come up with a solution by herself, but was intent on proving something to him. Commonly, he would not find what. She enjoyed seeing him squirm and rack his brain, and probably considered the effort put in the process a worthy proof of his affection for her.

Half-time? Unborn time?

It seemed to involve a particular brand of devotion, very much her own and that he would not translate in terms of love displays. What River experiences for love is a blend of pallid fury and hasty decay. He wishes he could explain it to himself. It would enable him to justify their connection. To convince himself she chose him.

_Pompeii maybe._

The ashes burning the flesh would also ensure the bodies were cast in eternity in the shape of everyday and life. A loaf of bread, a dog, an embrace.

But nothing inside left. Dust, a desiccated carcass. The shape of love.

Not proof really. _Fossils._

Oh _. No._

He hated his wife. Ever the Archaeologist.

 _Palaeontologist!_ And he wished he had a head to massage after such a bump.

Beside hitting him, River had stopped a piece of time within her hands and was softly blowing on it.

He looked askance, curious, a little impressed; she crooked an eyebrow.

She was growing time out of her missed breaths. River, unlike him, had many, now nested in his chest. Lost regeneration, power to never-time.

The piece seemed to weigh more and more on her arms that were his arms, that were Time’s arms. She nearly stumbled forward, before he seized the chunk in her hands and stabilized her.

And gently they floated down to the ground.

Their body in sleep had not shifted. He was still turned to her, like an ear. And her hand was still hooked to his, like a promise.

Their phantom feet did not dance to reclaim tangibility. Pure time doesn’t settle for three-beat rhythm, or coda.

They stirred, aching, almost surprised when brushing against each other they found flesh instead of time dancing. The cave was dark, damp, devoid of movement, supplied with the crooning atmosphere of Mezwees waiting for their companions to come back. He staggered up to his feet and she mumbled back into comprehensibility;

they smiled.

It required none of the ability they had lost for a breath of time, and all of what they chased and missed and dodged: their life.

 

Hands muddy and face grimacing, they were having a hard time helping each other climbing out of the cave, when River, whose arse was very conveniently placed while he was working as stepladder, exclaimed:

“Wait a minute. What was Napoleon doing here?”


End file.
